Obama's "Ban on Cloning"

As arguments raged over Obama’s executive order to provide federal funding for embryonic stem cell research a few weeks ago, the administration’s pro-life defenders emphasized that this was only a small incremental step beyond the Bush administration policy and that the Obama administration would be very careful in examining the ethical issues and most especially would not allow the production of cloned embryos.

And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.

The problem with the statement and the policy behind it is “for human reproduction”. There is a major effort on to differentiate between “reproductive cloning” and “somatic cell nuclear transfer” (the scientific term for creating a cloned embryo) for research purposes. As a senator, Obama co-sponsored a bill sponsored by Senators Feinstein, Hatch, Harkin, and Specter which purported to be a “ban on cloning”. What it in fact consisted of was a ban on implanting a cloned embryo into a surrogate mother in order to allow it to normally develop and be born.

People are rightly put off by the idea of “creating clones” as an offense against human nature and dignity. Yet there are many in the biotech industry who have business plans hungry for massive supplies of embryos to be used (and eventually destroyed) in research. While all the talk about ESCR and other forms of embryo destructive research has been around “spare” embryos in IVF clinics, the fact of the matter is that there is a limited supply of ready-made embryos available. If biotech companies were to come up with commercially scalable processes that involved destroying embryos, the would run out very quickly. So while embryo destructive research with “spare” embryos is itself a huge moral problem in regards to human life and dignity, it’s something which would quickly run itself out.

The favored solution to this problem is cloning, which would have the added benefit (from a biotech point of view) of being able to produce “spare parts” derived from cloned embryos that exactly matched the DNA of the patient being treated. This does, currently, still create a problem: Cloning requires the use of a human egg cell, which can normally only be acquired from a woman via the use of heavy ovulation hormone treatments. If cloning comes into use on an industrial scale, not only would we have the morally abhorrent situation of thousands or even millions of human lives being created specifically for the purpose of destroying them, but we would doubtless find biotech companies paying women in the third world to undergo frequent “egg donations” with possibly serious long term health effects. (Most ghoulishly of all, some have suggested harvesting the eggs from female aborted children to be used to feed a cloning industry.)

As of now, people still have a natural revulsion towards the idea of creating human life for utilitarian purposes. It would be a shame if that natural reaction is channeled into passing legislation making it illegal to let clones live, yet allowing their mass creation to be used in research and then destroyed.

5 Responses to Obama's "Ban on Cloning"

Here is the thing; even without ESCR you will have issues of cloning involved with non-ESCR. I think most people neglect that. Indeed, I still find normal stem cell (non-embryonic) to be morally questionable, and we are going too far too quick without reasoning it out.

Moreover, since both Obama and McCain supported ESCR, it is clear this is a cultural issue, and not just partisan. I think we need to fix the culture, and maybe the candidates will change because of it, don’t you?

Here is the thing; even without ESCR you will have issues of cloning involved with non-ESCR. I think most people neglect that. Indeed, I still find normal stem cell (non-embryonic) to be morally questionable, and we are going too far too quick without reasoning it out.

Actually, to my knowledge, non-embryonic stem cell research does not involve cloning. Cloning is specifically the creation of a new embryo (a new human being) with DNA matching that of another human being by transfering the DNA of the “parent” human being into a fertilized egg cell. The non-embryonic stem cell methodologies out there involve taking stem cells extracting from a living person and culturing those stem cells so that they grow on their own. No egg is used, and no embryo is created.

Moreover, since both Obama and McCain supported ESCR, it is clear this is a cultural issue, and not just partisan. I think we need to fix the culture, and maybe the candidates will change because of it, don’t you?

They did both support ESCR to an extent, and that was a very grave problem with both candidates. However, to my knowledge, McCain did not support embryo creation via cloning/SCNT, while Obama supports it. Since the use of cloning allows the creation of large numbers of human embryos with the express purpose of destroying them through use, I think it’s fair to consider Obama’s position on this worse even though McCain’s was bad.

I do strongly agree that we need to change the culture on this issue, which is why I think it’s important that knowledgeable voices make it clear that SCNT/”theraputic cloning” is in fact cloning, and that we should at a purely humanistic level find the production of human beings for research and “spare parts” to be an offense against human dignity. That is why this should be an important teaching moment, and why I think Robert P. George’s contribution in the linked exchange on a major secular news site was of great help, while Kmiec’s dissembling was clearly not.

2. Was a co-sponsor of the misleadingly named “Human Cloning Ban Act of 2005,” which, if passed, would have protected cloning-for-biomedical research, and would have required the destruction of all human embryos created by cloning, on pain of federal criminal law (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.1520:).

4. Most shocking, he voted against a bill in the United States Senate that would have authorized increased funding for recently developed forms of stem cell research that do not require the use and destruction of human embryos, despite the fact that such research has captured the imagination of the scientific community both for its efficacy and moral neutrality, and despite the fact that the bill in no way precluded funding for embryo destructive research (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00128 ).